publishing | thinkit creative

On Heinlein’s five rules about writing

By Patrick Gant

Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein came up with this list in 1947 to describe what he saw as the rules governing speculative fiction. But it applies just as much to non-fiction and business writing today.

Don’t be fooled by the brevity of the list. It’s hard to adhere to all five rules.

Rule One: You Must Write
Rule Two: Finish What Your Start
Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market
Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold

Rule #1 is self-explanatory. On its own, Rule #2 explains why there are so many aspiring authors and so few successful ones.

Getting Rule #3 right is about knowing the difference between fixing your mistakes and overcooking your ideas. And adhering to Rules #4 & 5 is what distinguishes professionals from hobbyists.

Q&A: What is an ISBN?

By Patrick Gant

The International Standard Book Number, or ISBN, is the unique, 13-digit identifier used by publishers and libraries to organize and track books made available for sale.

But for those of you interested in self-publishing, take note: it’s far more than just a tool for librarians or distributors.

It is the number by which sales are tracked on each individual published work you have in the marketplace. That’s really important when it comes to selling your ebooks and paper books on Amazon, Kobo and iBookstore, where sales ranking can have a major sway on impulse buyers.

In Canada, obtaining an ISBN is free. The only catch is that you must provide Library and Archives Canada with a free copy of each book for which an ISBN is assigned. Not a bad deal at all.

In the United States, authors pay for this service. They can purchase a single ISBN for $125, buy a group of 10 ISBNs for $250, 100 for $575, or 1000 cost $1000.

You don’t need to obtain a separate ISBN to sell your books in another country (after all, that’s the “I” in ISBN). Typically authors obtain the number in their country of residence.

You need to obtain a separate ISBN for a book that has multiple editions in which the content of that book has changed in some measurable way. On the other hand, when it comes to ebook publishing, you can use the same ISBN on a single work that is being formatted in both epub and mobi formats when making your work available on Kobo, iBookstore and Amazon.

Important choices you need to make if you want to write a book

By Patrick Gant

Photo: thebbp on flickr

As a business professional, a published book can be one of the most powerful tools in your personal marketing arsenal. Not only does it deliver value to your readers by sharing what you know on a subject, you directly benefit, too.

It can elevate your profile as an authority on the topic you write about. It can reveal your passion. And if your book is really well-written, it also gives people a sense of what you’re like as a person, both on a personal and professional level.

But there are choices to make. Click to continue

Latest mind-blowing fact about ebooks

By Patrick Gant

This just in, courtesy of Seth Godin:

The number of ebooks published in 2012 is going to exceed a million, easily. That’s more than 8 times as many books as were published to the public a year ago.

I’ve been talking about this trend for quite some time now. If you’re in the audience business (and you are), the self-publishing gold rush is on.

Ebooks are now one of the most powerful, disruptive forces in publishing and marketing today.

The dangerous invention and why that matters to you

By Patrick Gant

Photo: 13,800 by Adam Wilson on 500px

Just weeks after he set out to write a new book, noted web developer Jonathan Snook had a brand-new product ready to hit the market.

His work on this project was the outcome of a series of notes he’d been collecting for a few months. The result was an ebook that shows developers how they can use cascading style sheets to better manage large, complex websites.

The technical term for this is SMACSS. But this post isn’t to talk about what that does (besides, his book explains it so well that even a guy like me can begin to understand it).

Rather, I want to share with you three valuable lessons that anyone in the ideas business—and as a reader of this blog, that means you—can learn from and apply, based on Jonathan’s example.

There is no time-to-market anymore.

We live in an idea-powered economy. The market for smart new ways of doing things—in this case, developers who build big websites—isn’t the kind that’s going to wait around for months to get a paper-based book in their hands.

For the chop-down-a-tree publishing industry, the time-to-market (fancy talk for the length of time between creating a product and it being available for sale) is typically measured in months. Sometimes even longer.

That’s an agonizing amount of time to wait and it’s a major sore point with writers and thought leaders today. As Scott Stratten, best-selling author of Unmarketing once tweeted on this very subject: “publishing needs to decide if they’re in the information biz or the paper biz.”

Opting for self-publishing your ebook erases that delay. It eliminates everything that used to stand between you and the people you want to influence. It puts ideas in people’s heads. And it does so nearly as fast as you can come up with ideas.

That’s why the ebook is one of the most dangerous, disruptive inventions to have ever emerged in human history.

Let me repeat that…

“The ebook is one of the most dangerous, disruptive inventions to have ever emerged in human history.”
Click to tweet this.

No wonder publishers (among others) are freaking out.

Build on permission.

Jonathan understood that it’s not enough to just write an ebook, upload it to Amazon, Kobo or the iBookstore and sit back and wait for readers to come to you. Ideas travel fastest in groups.

As I am fond of saying, people are busy. No matter who you are, the public’s attention for what you have to say is scarce. “Permission,” says Seth Godin, “is still the most important and valuable asset of the web (and of publishing).” You need credibility to build an audience. And that’s an ongoing task.

In case of my friend Jonathan, he already has a legion of fans and followers. The way we sells his book and his ideas shows you how he’s done that.

In addition to offering his newest product for download either directly from his site or via Amazon, he’s also included a membership option, featuring some pretty great added benefits for a small fee.

“We’re all marketers now.”

That’s a quote from a 2011 McKinsey Quarterly report. And it’s spot-on. You are no longer separate from your message. Today, who you are, what you do, what you offer, what you solve and how you solve things are all part of your product and your offer.

Among the last of the perceived benefits of the publishing industry was that they would look after all these things for you. They would package your product, edit it, and use a bunch of methods to try and draw attention to your product.

Even in those areas, you are now better served by doing things your way. No one knows your idea and your audience better than you.

It’s not hard to find experts who can help you look after all the things you need to build the best possible experience for your readers. For instance, Jonathan hired a fantastic illustrator who developed a great looking character mascot for his cover. Need an editor? It’s not hard to find a great one who is easy to work with. Same goes for graphic design, translation…and so on.

This is a great time to be a writer. If you’re in the idea business, you already are one. There are pros who can help you refine that skill, too. Don’t know one? Subscribe to my newsletter. I’m happy to share what I know.

Learn from the examples of others like Jonathan and you’ll see: in this digital age, with this dangerous invention, it’s never been easier to share your ideas and build a market with more people in less time.